The present invention relates to the new and distinct cultivar of bee balm plant, botanically known as Monarda ‘Rockin' Raspberry’, and hereinafter also referred to solely as the cultivar ‘Rockin' Raspberry’ or the “new plant”. The new plant was selected from seed collected by the hybridizer from a formal hybridizing program on Aug. 9, 2012 from designated hybridizing plot of a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Mich., USA, from an unreleased proprietary hybrid identified as H10-26-07 that was allowed to be insect pollinated on an isolation block on Jun. 12, 2012, and the seeds were harvested on Aug. 9, 2012. The new plant was a single seedling selection originally made in the summer of 2013 from the all the seeds that were sown in the fall of 2012 from this specific process. Further selection was completed in the trial fields of a nursery in Zeeland, Mich. in the summer of 2014 and the plant was assigned the breeder code of H12-62-4.
The new plant has been asexually propagated by shoot tip cuttings originally in 2014 in greenhouses at the same nursery in Zeeland, Mich., and the subsequent asexually propagated plants found to be stable, true to type and identical to the original selection.
No plants of Monarda ‘Rockin' Raspberry’ have been sold in this country, or anywhere in the world, prior to the filing of this application, nor has any disclosure of the new plant been made prior to the filing of this application with the exception of that which was disclosed within one year of the filing of this application and was either derived directly or indirectly from the inventors.